Book Review: The Gentleman Thief

My rating: 4 magic stars

for
A wonderfully absurd and ridiculously funny tale that kept me chuckling till the very end.

Copy provided by the publisher Distant Shore Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you for a lovely book!


Joe Thorne is a wannabe thief, as well as an overgrown chimneysweep. And when the chance rises for a huge job that could get him settled for life as well as allow him to quit the whole chimney sweeping business, he pounces on it without a second thought.
Except that there's a small wrinkle in his plan. You see, after taking work in the large furnaces of the alchemy district, Joe had developed a distinctive cough with magical qualities. And whenever he coughed, something.... 'interesting' happened.
When said cough ends up turning all the gold he stole into a stack of potatoes, the feat manages to have Joe sent straight in between the jaws of a troll. And yet, that isn't Joe's greatest problem by far.

The troll situation could be fixed with the help of the same magical cough but the bad luck trailing Joe is a completely different matter. And all of it could have been avoided if Joe hadn't been such a gentleman to begin it!
What kind of bad luck, you're asking? The kind that makes his best friend throw his hand up in the air when Joe explains:
'Fritz, I've been half-killed on three separate occasions today and it's not even dinnertime.'

And all of it due to the fact that, like the gentleman he is, Joe couldn't refuse a Princess and had to accept her gift, during his ill-advised theft. A coin that the princess clearly valued, but was forced to relinquish.

Joe tried his best to get rid of the thing. He spent it. threw it in a fountain and even fed it to a troll. But regardless of what Joe did, it always came back to him.

The best solution would have been to return the damn thing. But, as Joe himself puts it:
'Just walk up to a princess and say excuse me madam, I acquired this while robbing you and I find that it doesn't suit my needs, do you have a return policy?'
This won't work at all!

So Joe takes the only available option. He starts on a quest to reverse-pick-pocket the coin. But for that he needs to get close to the princess, or the guy she's supposed to marry.

Except that his quest ends up leading him onto a journey to a mystical island, shrouded in ancient tradition. Valleys of crystalline rivers, arching forests deeper than the eye can fathom, and not a tavern in sight. Joe is devastated.
Swept up by a lost love, a frog-man (or is it a man-frog?) with amnesia, and a sentient handkerchief, they embark (Joe, somewhat reluctantly) on yet another quest to solve a mysterious disappearance which still shrouds the island.

The book is full of magic and extraordinary adventures triggered by the most absurd circumstances. It's funny and intriguing, and downright hilarious at times.
Refreshing and absolutely unpredictable because of the sheer absurdity of it, The Gentleman Thief makes for one absolutely engaging read. Joe's shenanigans, combined with the sneezing of things into problems that send him from one misfortune into another, turned this little read into a unique fun-filled adventure.

I highly recommend it to anyone in need for a funny read to curl up with at the end of a long day. This one is guaranteed to make you at least chuckle, if not laugh out loud. :)

Check out this book and more of Kate Gragg here.